


The Death of Sigurd

by Valiowk



Series: Wagner’s Sandbox [1]
Category: Der Ring des Nibelungen | The Ring of the Nibelung - Wagner, Ragnars saga loðbrókar | Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, Völsunga saga | Saga of the Volsungs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28443783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valiowk/pseuds/Valiowk
Summary: Sigurd carvednaudᚾ on Grimhild’s drinking horn, on the back of his hand and on his fingernail and cast leek into the mead, did not marry Gudrun and was not killed by Guttorm.‘If Siegfried […] had lived long enough to have his hair grow thin on top and to become the father of five children, he might have come to be like Set Svanholm.’—Schoolmaster Becomes Siegfried; Set Svanholm, Wagnerian Tenor From Sweden --Tagliavini
Relationships: Brynhildr/Sigurðr | Sigurd (Norse Religion & Lore), Áslaug/Ragnarr Loðbrók | Ragnar Lodbrok (Norse Religion & Lore)
Series: Wagner’s Sandbox [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170812
Kudos: 2





	The Death of Sigurd

It begins with Brynhild assuming that Sigurd has devised a new method to tease her: by nudging her repeatedly. Only upon comprehending that Sigurd genuinely has no knowledge of his actions—that the movements of his arm are involuntary—does it dawn on her that something is wrong.

The healer diagnoses an abnormal growth in the brain.

‘Would trepanation help?’ Sigurd enquires. Notwithstanding that he is regarded as a legend, the embodiment of the classical hero, Sigurd is uncommonly modern, often to the astonishment of the people.

The healer’s eyes raise. Sigurd is, after all, their king, and trepanation has always been a perilous procedure. ‘Perhaps. It would have been better if the condition had been discovered earlier.’ But all three understand its impossibility: Sigurd’s sheer fitness is precisely the reason for the discovery only now.

As the couple see off the healer, they perceive the latter’s surprise at Sigurd’s (lack of) height. Sigurd affects a groan at the wonted situation after the healer is out of hearing, while Brynhild chuckles that Sigurd accepts his early balding but insisted that the legs of his throne be taller than the carpenter had measured and keeps his helmet on before and after battle.

Later that week, Sigurd joins his sworn brother and neighbouring king, Gunnar, to expel enemy raiders. Compared with the feat of slaying a dragon, Sigurd’s prowess at sea combat almost pales into insignificance, but it is a point of pride to him that after his first battle—avenging his father Sigmund and grandfather Eylimi against the sons of Hunding in naval warfare—his stepfather Alf reckoned (whether correctly or not) Sigurd’s skill on water even higher than on land. Given Sigurd’s malady, Brynhild and the children still living with them, Sigmund and Svanhild, are hesitant to fulfil Sigurd’s sole superstition of kicking him seven times each so that he will fight better, but Sigurd refuses to take his leave before they have done so. Brynhild accompanies him, as she has on a good number of previous expeditions.

Gunnar, who has yet to be apprised of Sigurd’s illness, shouts to him lustily, ‘Sigurd, can’t you wait until you’re in private to rib Brynhild?’

‘I’ll do my best!’ Sigurd replies with a winning smile.

The victory celebrations are conducted in Sigurd’s hall. Gunnar’s warriors toast their king, while Sigurd’s combatants, as is their custom, drink to Brynhild. It is the fulfilment of an oath that Sigurd plighted Brynhild before he departed Hindarfjäll onto new adventures, to console his wife who was a valkyrie no longer:

> _[…]  
>  mina segrar vänder till dig:  
>  […]  
>  jag är blott Brynnhildes arm!_
> 
> [_Så minns de eder_](http://www.vivaopera.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/14_CD_Track_GO.mp3#t=00:03:55,00:04:34) ( _Gedenk’ der beschildeten Frau_ , from _Zu neuen Thaten_ ), _Ragnarök_ ( _Götterdämmerung_ )  
>  sung by Birgit Nilsson and Set Svanholm, conducted by Sixten Ehrling, 23 November 1955  
>  from [_Ringentolkningar i Stockholm 1904-2007_](https://www.vivaopera.se/2017/04/29/ringentolkningar-i-stockholm-1904-2007/)
> 
> […]  
>  my victories redound to you:  
>  […]  
>  I am but Brynhild’s arm![1]

Until this day, Brynhild vividly remembers Sigurd jestingly asking her whether his triumphs would requite her loss, and her astoundment when she realised that Sigurd was in earnest about devoting all his achievements to her.

They perform a sword dance before the cheering crowd, and when Brynhild outmatches Sigurd by a hair, he comments to her, ‘It’s a pity you aren’t still a valkyrie.’ Sigurd says it sincerely, not merely out of courtesy, she knows: he is as open-hearted as his grandfather Völsung, who supported his wife Hljod rejoining the ranks of the valkyries. Dedicating all his accomplishments to her is Sigurd’s way of thanking her for remaining by his side and raising their three children together, albeit the choice was not hers to make—not that she would change anything if she were given the same choice as Hljod.

‘You were correct,’ Gunnar’s younger brother Guttorm remarks to Sigurd as they retire for the night. At Sigurd’s questioning gaze, he continues, ‘when Gunnar directed me to seek your advice because he is my overprotective brother’—Guttorm pulls an impish face—‘and you are my idol: I could have twenty years as a warrior who could be mentioned in the same breath as Sigurd Fafnesbane,’—Sigurd vaguely recalls his actual words being ‘an illustrious warrior leader’—‘with the resulting scars to accompany my remaining years,’—Guttorm gazes at the arm stump to which he has long grown used—‘or forty years as a hale and hearty king.’ He is temporarily overcome by a chronic cough. ‘I don’t regret my choice.’

Later in bed, Sigurd reflects to Brynhild, ‘I wonder if the abnormal growth in the brain can be cured. But if I am to die soon, there could be no better final battle than to have fought beside Gunnar, Högni and Guttorm again. Such is the joy of my soul, I fear that nevermore will I be accorded such a divine moment in the unknown future of my destiny.’

‘May heaven dispel all troubles and love change not with the changing of the years,’ Brynhild responds. ‘Your conversation with Guttorm was long.’

‘Aye. The night is far advanced.’ Sigurd peeks through the window at the sky. ‘Freyja’s hens[2] have returned to their house.’ He snuggles up to Brynhild.

Their eldest child Åslaug and her husband Ragnar—clad in his characteristic shaggy breeches—visit them shortly after, with their newborn son Ivar. Åslaug had met Ragnar when she and her foster grandfather Heimer visited Spangereid, and Ragnar had been immediately taken with the maid who bested him in both wits and sailing. Ivar seems a fragile infant, having already fractured his bones once, but his grandparents are not inordinately perturbed—after all, Sigurd himself was not the healthiest of children. Though, Sigurd contemplates as he observes Åslaug’s eyebags as she nurses Ivar in the morning, he should perhaps have a polite fatherly conversation with Ragnar about showing restraint! (Brynhild knows an anecdote about restraint that is better kept secret, he thinks fondly.) Of Sigurd’s children, Åslaug—even more than her brother Sigmund—resembles their father closest, whether in skill with sailing or a harpoon, although Sigurd speculates that her proficiency with weaponry is—unlike her intelligence—not innate, but rather a result of the years when she was the only child. Åslaug is what Sigurd would have been were he not Fafnesbane, Heimer deems. It is fitting then, Sigurd muses, that she is now queen in Denmark.

Apropos of Sigmund, Sigurd has an inkling that he may need to have a conversation with Gunnar regarding the hand of Gunnar’s daughter Bergljot at some point, if he read the signs correctly starting from the time Sigmund covered up for Bergljot when she accidentally dropped Andvaranaut into the river as their families sailed together down the Rhine past Andvari’s Fall. It will be Sigmund’s choice whether or not to request his father to do so.

As for Svanhild… a völva once presaged that Svanhild would die young. Sigurd does not know what the völva foreboded, but he would protect Svanhild to the best of his ability with or without such a prophecy.

Sigurd undergoes trepanation at the end of summer. Before the surgery, Sigmund and Brynhild have been appointed regents. Sigurd hands Brynhild a message written with cipher runes just before the operation, which she understands is to take her mind off Sigurd during the procedure…and mayhap after. Brynhild recalls Hjälmgunnar, stricken with fear when he apprehended that she had chosen him—Odin’s favoured—for Valhall, and Agnar Geirrödsson, who was always kind and trusted in his own ability more than in the favour of the gods, yet called upon her—even if only under his breath—to fulfil her oath in that fatal hour. It has never been clearer to her why she awarded victory to Agnar, nor does she regret it, and she knows that she would have done so even without an oath binding her.

Sigurd’s recuperation after surgery is slow, if any. At the end of winter, a missive arrives from his stepbrother Hjalprek enquiring yet again about his health, informing him of the biography that is being written of their late mother Hjördis and inviting his contribution. The potential memoir serves as good mental exercise for Sigurd, although Brynhild eventually writes back on his behalf that Hjalprek will hear from him as soon as he can write again and enclosing the youthful belongings that she assisted him in extricating from the tidiest hoard in the North. Sigurd had always kept his beard close-cropped, but it has grown out since the operation, causing Svanhild to ruminate that it imparts to her father a likeness to the depiction that has spread of the frail but luminous king of Corbenic in the British Isles who attained a quest for a holy cup, healed a fishing king and restored a wasteland (although, she gauges, her brother should be more propitious in love than the younger son of that king, just as her parents were more fortunate than the hero of Cornwall whose greatest regret was that a misunderstanding resulted in him delivering his beloved into the arms of another).

As Brynhild mulls the cipher runes—which she has still not figured out—Sigurd speaks with difficulty, ‘You … can … ask … Åslaug.’ Precipitously, Brynhild fathoms the significance of those words. Sigurd’s stepbrother Hamund and his wife Gudrun, Gunnar’s sister, have sent word that they will be paying a call the following day; Brynhild dispatches a courier forthwith to hasten them to Sigurd’s sickbed. Hamund and Gudrun are devastated upon beholding Sigurd’s infirmity. They wish to hearten him by reminiscing about his exploits, portrayed on the tapestries presented to him over the years, which adorn the walls, but Sigurd wrings out a single sentence: ‘Talk … about … Hunaland … and … Worms.’ As Sigurd contentedly listens to their tales, Brynhild meditates that at no other moment has she wanted more to be a valkyrie, like Hljod who led Völsung and Sigmund to Valhall.

He is Sigurd Fafnesbane, whose name will never perish among the Norsemen nor in the German tongue, but he merely wants to hear about the lands of his forefathers and brothers.

He is Sigurd Fafnesbane, whom no man now living or ever after will be born will equal in strength, courage and courtesy, as well as in boldness and generosity, and he will die, bedridden and almost mute for the last months of his life, of a brain tumour.

* * *

[1] Swedish and English translations of the stanza beginning with ‘Durch deine Tugend allein’ in Richard Wagner’s opera _Götterdämmerung_. I would be infinitely grateful if someone who knows Swedish could let me know the exact text that Siegfried sings; I only quoted the lines that I could figure out completely using Google Translate. *blush*

[2] The Norse name for the Pleiades.

**Author's Note:**

> ### Bonus: the anecdote about restraint
> 
> Brynhild will forever remember Sigurd’s fumbling after he had [almost lost his voice](https://www.pristineclassical.com/products/paco092) pressing his suit with a hesitant valkyrie and they had vowed themselves to each other. It amazed her that she could discern his considerations so effortlessly: he was too fatigued to consummate their marriage immediately after killing a dragon the same day; he would be a laughingstock if anyone learnt that all Sigurd Sigmundsson wanted on his wedding night was to sleep like a babe; he did not trust himself to be sufficiently gentle with Brynhild in his exhaustion; he would laugh at himself if he succumbed to sleep just like that; he knew not if his bride would be disconcerted or reassured were he to postpone consummation…
> 
> ‘Go to bed; you’re bone-weary. None will know but you and I,’ Brynhild chuckled to Sigurd and perceived his instant relief at her understanding and help in making the decision.
> 
> ‘May I embrace you in bed?’ Sigurd besought.
> 
> ‘I just awoke from the longest slumber in my life!’ Brynhild reminded him teasingly. Nevertheless, she sat on the bed and tapped her lap, indicating him to lay his head on it.
> 
> Sigurd had a reinvigorating sleep, and in the morning he kissed Brynhild and they joined together, in body in addition to soul.


End file.
